To the editor:
Re: “Relief from traffic woes a long way off,” Nov. 15.
“If you tell a SkyTrain lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The SkyTrain lie can be maintained only for such time as the province and TransLink can shield the people from the political and economic consequences of the SkyTrain lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the province and TransLink to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the SkyTrain lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the province and TransLink.” A reworked quote from the father of modern propaganda, the notorious Joseph Goebbels.
The financial ills of TransLink can be traced directly to SkyTrain and the massive costs of the proprietary mini-metro system. SkyTrain has cost the taxpayer about three times more to build than if we had built with modern light rail instead. With added insult to the taxpayer, the SkyTrain mini-metro, despite being “driverless” costs more to operate, with no added benefit.
Despite the hype and hoopla by the SkyTrain lobby, which includes the City of Vancouver, SkyTrain does not have a greater capacity than light rail and never did. The new light rail line being built in Ottawa has easily 50 per cent more capacity potential than our present Expo and Millennium lines and over three times the capacity potential of the Canada Line. The capacity choke point of SkyTrain is the 80 metre station platforms and the 50 metre station platforms on the Canada Line, which are much smaller than the 150 metre station platforms on Ottawa’s Confederation light rail line. Longer platforms, means longer trains can be used, carrying more customers.
Former TransLink CEO Tom Prendergast recognized “the cultural embracement of SkyTrain that has existed” and tried to bring light rail oriented transit planning but the SkyTrain cabal, overseeing transit planning at TransLink forced him out.
TransLink’s real problem is SkyTrain and the massive costs associated with the mode and putting SkyTrain in a subway will only exacerbate TransLink’s financial woes. Endemic gridlock will continue until the present SkyTrain and subway hubris comes to the end at TransLink.
Malcolm Johnston,
Delta
